Looks wonderful, Karen! I played with the leftovers tonight and was delighted again:

This might seem a little like Weird Fusion, but it crossed my mind tonight to stir a little leftover red quinoa into a simple mushroom risotto. I have to tell you that it exceeded expectations, kicking both texture and flavor up a notch. I'll definitely work with the combination of rice and red quinoa again.

Tonight I broiled top round steak after marinating it in Merlot and adding some garlic powder. Had it with a baked potato and a glass of the Merlot (will post about the Merlot in the Merlot/Cabernet Franc thread later.)

Baked all day yesterday. Made the pumkin pie and then mini pumpkin breads, and two kinds of cookie dough that I will bake off today and send back to the base with the two Marines coming over for Thanksgiving dinner. Today I will make the sweet potatos and prep everything else so hopefully Thursday will be a breeze.

Hello. My name is Carrie, and I...I....still like oaked Chardonnay. (Please don't judge.)

Good going, Carrie! I'm also cooking ahead (for Saturday): one ice cream done, the other will be churned tonight, cranberry sauce done, stock for gravy done, cake will be done today. That leaves soup for the day before, and the rest of it on the day.

Tonight we had some leftover mushroom soup -- the elegant one from Parma, Emilia Romagna, with a rich broth, several kinds of mushrooms including truffles, and wine.

Then -- After a triple re-gifting I found myself with a deer liver.

I managed to give half to my tenants, who made an elegant terrine with it. I had several terrine-related cookbooks that I loaned them, along with loaf pans of various sizes, and they are happy with their result.

I made liver and onions. Cut up the liver, soak in milk for as long as one can. Fry 3 strips of bacon, then remove and pour off some of the fat, add 2 tablespoons of butter and a large sweet onion sliced into rings. A couple of sprigs of thyme. Fry until soft.

Remove the onions from the pan, remove the milk from the liver, coat the liver chunks with seasoned flour, and fry until browned outside and pinkish inside.

I had real trepidations about this but it tasted 100 times better than my mother's standard fried liver, and about half as good as what we typically do with chicken livers. I haven't cooked ANY kind of liver in ages because of my cholesterol problem but we basically had no choice.

An adult deer liver apparently weighs about THREE POUNDS. After giving some away, I was still dealing with more than a pound of liver.

I have a feeling I shouldn't do this, but if you are my age, and used to read the NY Times, you might be impressed.

The original owner of the liver was Ray Sokolov. AFAIK the deer was shot on Saturday morning. The hunter gave the liver to the Sokolovs, and they gave it to our hostess, and she gave it to me. The dinner party on Saturday, when I made mushroom soup from Parma for 12, was the occasion on which I met the Sokolovs.

I moved to New Jersey in 1972 -- and the Watergate affair was in full flower. I can't remember if I subscribed to the NY Times but if not, I bought it all the time to read the articles about Watergate. And every Wednesday there would be a recipe from Ray Sokolov, who had succeeded Craig Claiborne as the food writer for the NYT.

Meeting Ray Sokolov, for me, was a little like meeting Santa Claus. There actually is a person, still going strong, with that name.

So obviously I had to cook his liver. I should have bought some fava beans I suppose...

Oh, I am just exhausted. I am up to mein pupik in pumpkin. Just finished making a chocolate pumpkin cake... this is the world's heaviest confection. I have a bundt pan made from an old Sherman tank to bake this thing in. Even the recipe says, as its last step: Give 3/4 of the cake away!

Frank - That is a great story. We seldom get to actually meet the people whose work we admire in newspapers and magazines. Nice that you were able to do so.

Jeff - You're making me feel guilty. My wife is going to the store at this moment to pick up walnuts and sesame seeds for a candied-spiced walnut thing that we'll bring to a friend's house tomorrow. That's the entire extent of our Thanksgiving Day cooking. (Resist the urge to throw something at your monitor. This is my fault, not your computer's.)

As for the "What's cooking" angle, tonight was pot roast risotto. I made risotto from the leftover braising liquid from Sunday's pot roast. Added some of the leftover meat as the rice was getting close to done. Some Parmigiano at the end. It was as rich and delicious as expected. It went nicely with a GSM called "Ponticis" from Trader Joes's. It's up there with most good Cotes du Rhones and runs all of $5.99.

Since we missed out on the leftovers and such, I roasted a turkey this afternoon. Had it with mashed potatoes, maple-glazed carrots, and a squash soup that some friends brought over. For dessert, my wife made butterscotch pudding.

After a week of too much meat, dinner tonight is baked potatoes and a lacinato kale salad. Yup, just bakers, but as Fred Sipe puts it, "big ass" potatoes fresh from Idaho (and I do mean, I actually bought them in Idaho and drug them home). Should be a treat!

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Jenise wrote:After a week of too much meat, dinner tonight is baked potatoes and a lacinato kale salad. Yup, just bakers, but as Fred Sipe puts it, "big ass" potatoes fresh from Idaho (and I do mean, I actually bought them in Idaho and drug them home). Should be a treat!

Jenise, we loved baked potatoes for dinner with fresh artichokes, or a salad, or fresh broccoli. I know what you mean about too much meat. When I feel like that the bakers are what I go to along with a really healthy side.

For Thanksgiving I made Madhur Jaffrey's vegetarian version of Caldo Gallego for 12. The original version of this soup is loaded with sausage and smoked meats. The Veg Version gets its umami mainly from beans and greens. I love Swiss Chard and leeks, and those were in there along with various vegetables in quarter inch dice. I told Louise I was thinking of changing my name to "Quarter-inch Deis". But the soup was really good. Diced potatoes and onions, an aliquot pureed with the stick blender.

Today -- I made the Turkish okra recipe with onions and tomatoes again. That is so delicious. This time I prepped the okra Turkish style for the first time. The Turkish concept is, if you simply cut off the cap end of the okra, you let the glue out. I don't mind the gluey texture very much but I tried it -- instead of cutting off the caps, you "sharpen the pencil" so that the cap ends are closed with a cute little point carved on the end of each okra. It took about five or ten times longer but it's kind of hypnotic work, and it looks really nice. I've mentioned this recipe, it's by Martha Stewart and also uses Aleppo Pepper (easy to Google). I included a bell pepper and a couple of jalapenos, and they definitely added to the deliciousness. Oh, and a leek.

My T'Giving dinner happened tonight. The heritage bird performed beautifully. The stuffing, cranberry sauce, smoky pumpkin soup, chocolate pumpkin cake, and two ice creams are right out of my playbook and they were fine. (Although, Pumpkin is fond of a really chewy, fudgy style of ice cream and I'd really like something more tender.) Sauteed some baby brussel sprouts with bacon and mushrooms, and that was fine.

Made gravy! (Not a big deal for most folks but I don't know a single Jew who can make gravy. As far as I know, it's a religious imperative to buy it from the deli.)

The only new recipe was a Jacques Pepin version of garlic mashed potatoes, which was not a success both by flavor and by texture. I can dial back the milk to firm up the texture but there was almost no garlic presence whatsoever. Need to fix that. Add some minced raw cloves during the mashing?

Jeff Grossman/NYC wrote:My T'Giving dinner happened tonight. The heritage bird performed beautifully. The stuffing, cranberry sauce, smoky pumpkin soup, chocolate pumpkin cake, and two ice creams are right out of my playbook and they were fine. (Although, Pumpkin is fond of a really chewy, fudgy style of ice cream and I'd really like something more tender.) Sauteed some baby brussel sprouts with bacon and mushrooms, and that was fine.

Made gravy! (Not a big deal for most folks but I don't know a single Jew who can make gravy. As far as I know, it's a religious imperative to buy it from the deli.)

The only new recipe was a Jacques Pepin version of garlic mashed potatoes, which was not a success both by flavor and by texture. I can dial back the milk to firm up the texture but there was almost no garlic presence whatsoever. Need to fix that. Add some minced raw cloves during the mashing?

I will laugh over the "religious imperative" all day. Boy do I know some people that fits!

Re the garlic, I like raw garlic and would happily add it that way. I also love the taste of lightly pan roasted garlic or oven roasted, and either mashed in is good, though I would give a nod to the pan-roasted garlic in this case. I prefer either of these three to simply boiling the garlic with the potatoes. Sounds like you didn't have enough garlic, period, no matter how he got it in there. Which, speaking of that, was?

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

The recipe called for 4 cloves to be boiled with the potatoes. I used 12. No flavor whatsoever.

I like oven-roasted but that takes a long time on a day when the oven is heavily allocated. Maybe use that garlic press hand-tool thingie? Or, as you suggest, a quick saute to bring the flavor up and mash them in.